Since He Left ✓

22: Trust

I was led to a room, the sun shining through the single window. The walls were gray, old. The only piece of furniture was a couch torn at the handle, cotton showing. A mattress was laid on the floor, under the window.

Does Grayson sleep here?

Grayson and I were sitting on the couch, Sabrina left us when Grayson kindly asked her for privacy. I still hated her for lying to me.

As soon as she closed the door behind her I turned to Grayson, my hand his.

"Time to tell me everything, everything there is to this. To why you left!" I cried, my eyes pleading. "You probably don't know, but people think I'm crazy. I go to therapy three times a week. I'm forced to take pills!" He looked at me, innocent eyes sweeping over my face. 'Guilty' his face read, he felt beyond guilty and I knew it.

"I am so sorry, Isla. I really didn't mean to-."

"Please, just tell me why you left."

"Because your mom forced me to," he exhaled looking down and back at me, "See, Isla. I'm not your brother and Maman isn't my mother." His hand tightened on mine, his innocent eyes examining mine. I choked out a laugh.

"Are you kidding is this your excuse? You're not my brother, I didn't come here so you could lie to me!"

What's he talking about?

I've known Grayson ever since he was newborn, it's only natural when being siblings.

"No Isla, I'm not lying. See, we are stepsiblings, we share the same father but not mother. Before marrying your mother our father was married to someone else. That's when I was born, and less than a year after my birth my biological mother died. Dad was left a widower, and so when I was less than a year old he married Maman. You were two, so I know that you don't remember this."

His words made no sense whatever, how could this possibly be true?

"Maman and dad fooled you into thinking Maman was the one to give birth to me, but she wasn't the one. Elle, that was her name, my real mom. But she's dead now." Tears began to flood his eyes, I looked confused.

"Maman never wanted me, she never wanted to keep a child which wasn't hers. But dad persuaded her, so she kept me. When our parents got divorced, dad didn't want me. Knowing that your mother hated me, he told Maman as soon as he was settled in he would take me to live with him, so she agreed. But of course, he never came to get me. He disappeared and she couldn't find him. So she was left stuck with me. But never with kindness. She has never treated me as she has to you because you were her child and I wasn't."

"Do you remember that chocolate box and bear she gave you when she came back home from her business trip in Germany? You were six, and I was five." I shook my head. "Well, she never gave me one. Maman always acted cruelly to me as soon she looked at me, but always hid that side of her so you wouldn't grow up to hate her."

I never realized that she had been mean to him, but now that I thought about she was never the angel around him. But it hurt, it crushed me to know that she could do that to him. He never deserved any of that, and how could dad have left him like that?

"Isla, your mother, she's a monster," his voice was full of venom. Never had I seen this side of Grayson, so full of hatred. But I understood. Fully.